Entrenched or too-be-entrenched IBers will logic you to death over 'good reasons' and reason that make you think you are being selfish or whatever for asking to collaborate, integrate, be interdependent. Don't go into explaining. You are simply not enthusiastic about spending so much of your time doing independent activities and little time doing UA activities.

You could write to MB radio and ask a question straight to Dr Harley. I'm thinking it could really help your husband directly hear what Dr Harley's logic is.

Sorry about that, I thought I needed to start a new thread for a new question. Thanks for merging them!



Of course I am, that's exactly why I feel bad for keeping him from things he feels are important. I want him to be happy too! But now I feel less bad knowing it is perfectly okay to want to spend a lot of time with my H, without distractions. I think this explains why I feel this way:



I'll see how UA time goes this week, hopefully all goes well. If not, I will definitely consider writing to MB radio, as my H tends to understand things better when it is coming from someone else.

Stick to advocating for the "US" and don't worry about "ME" time.

Learn the MB principles and everyone will be extra happy and it won't be at anyone's expense.

It's independent behaviour. A huge love buster. He wants you to have separate finances and separate friends. Because it is burdensome for him to consider you. Very bad. This will lead to divorce. Ask me how I know!

I used to feel bad about wanting my husbands time and to PoJA money but he was so resistant and I just never tackled it. Over time he drifted further out to sea and fell for a friend he didn't feel was a burden and who had plenty of money. I also never saw the affair spending because of the IB set up were I was kept financially in the dark.

It's quite common for men to want to segregate their lives while women are more holistic. Dr H says lots of men view their life as a house where the wife occupies only one room, usually thought of as the sex room! Or possibly 'where I go to hand the bill work'. Women despise this approach and want to be welcome in every room as a joint partner. Particularly the social room.

You can't endure his lazy approach I'm afraid. It will ruin you both.

Interestingly, in my relationship now it's never been an issue. There was a man out there who eagerly wanted a full time relationship with me and he was not hard to find. Settling for less for so long was utter madness.

I too used to believe I was being a good wife by putting up with IB. My view now is that IB in of itself is a form of betrayal and it certainly creates the environment for an affair to easily happen. PinkPolish has an opportunity early in her marriage to abolish IB before children arrive. In my own life if I knew then what I know now, I would not have children with a man that did not want an interdependent lifestyle. I would make sure we went through marital adjustments and placed the marriage on top. Its not that I didn't want to in the first place its just that IBers wear you down with their 'good reason' so you internalize it and think you have to go along to get along. I believe its much harder to deal with a stubborn IBer after 35 years then a IBer after only one year of marriage and without the added responsibility to a family
and more!

Indiegirl, I guess where I get stuck is, my H and I seem to view IB differently. We both read the chapter over it and agreed that it is bad for building and sustaining love and should at least be eliminated until the marriage is better, but what I think is IB, he views as small things that couldn't possibly be considered IB. My guess is that he only sees IB as being "big" things that he deems worthy of joint decision-making? I actually don't understand what he personally considers IB, because he even said earlier today that if I didn't want to spend time with him and was just doing my own thing all day that he wouldn't care or consider it IB, therefore I shouldn't care about what he does (even though I would consider ignoring your spouse to do what you want, even in the home, to be IB). How do you get IBers with their book of 'good reasons', to even begin to understand that just because they think it's a 'good reason' doesn't mean their spouse has to? How do you go about getting them to believe that what you feel, is just as important as what they feel?


Graceful2b, unortunately that has been something I have been worrying about a lot lately, as I do want to start a family in a few years but am afraid that problems would only worsen, as you say. I could definitely see how the want for IB would increase with the added responsibility and stress.

*Yet another update...sorry, this week has been especially rocky...and sorry for the length! I was trying to be specific*

After an unsuccessful attempt at scheduling 20hrs of UA time this upcoming week due to the fact that we are spending the upcoming weekend with family, we arrived at 12 scheduled hours(only because we decided that the 3hr drive could constitute as conversational time). So we got close to the minimum of 15, but even that was stretching it as he was not enthusiastic about planning any more UA time with me (he was ready to call it quits after scheduling only 4 hrs for the week).

The whole process was stressful. We had various arguments throughout the day over the same thing. I told him I felt unsafe talking with him (I have told him this before), but he dismissed this as being silly and untrue. This, I told him, made me feel like he did not care about my feelings. I will admit that near the end of the day I was getting fed up at his constant AO's that seemed to come out of nowhere, and yelled over him just at an attempt to be heard.

As an example of the types of arguments we have, I expressed my feelings that I thought we needed more than 15hrs a week as we have not been in a good place for quite some time. Despite his agreeing to this previously, he immediately got mad and raised his voice saying he would not do 30hrs because it was ridiculous and would leave him no extra time. I then told him I wasn't suggesting 30 and that I was fine with that, I just felt we needed more than 15. Then he proceeded to raise his voice again yelling about how 25 hrs was too much too, and refused to do that because that would mean all our time would be spent together. Again, I said that was fine as I didn't suggest 25, and asked him why he was getting mad when all I did was express my opinion and was trying to discuss an agreement that we both would be happy with. (On a side note we have talked about his anger issues and he said he can't remember why he gets mad later so he dismisses my stories of his anger as untrue, so we talked about how I should alert him to his anger as it happens). Finally we settled on 20hrs as a good goal, but he seemed more reluctant than willing.

Of course, at this point I was irritated and hurt, and made the mistake of recounting his unnecessary attitude and anger, and told him how I interpreted that as him not really wanting to spend time with me at all. I also said how I felt like, and was afraid that, I could never be his favorite person to be around because I got the impression that rather than actually wanting to spend time with me and try to make our marriage the top priority until things got better, he just wanted to schedule UA time just so that he could guaruntee himself IB time without me being "allowed" to complain. But somehow he twisted what I was saying and responded angrily with "You're telling me how I feel! Stop trying to tell me how I feel". I told him that no I was not, I was simply repeating exactly what was said/done, then explaining how I (MYSELF) interpreted those actions and how they made ME feel, in an attempt to explain what was bothering me and get him to understand my point of view. I even said that by doing this I was leaving entirely open the option for him to tell me my interpretation was wrong and explain his intent/reasoning/feeling behind the words or actions so that I could better understand what he was feeling. To this he argued that he didn't need to explain himself and I shouldnt be interpreting anything the way I do because I'm wrong, and again that I keep "telling him how he feels" and need to stop it.

This is an argument that seems to happen over and over, and many times I have asked him for advice on a better way for me to approach telling him what's bothering me, but he always says he doesn't know and doesn't want to try to come up with anything, but that i should stop doing what i'm doing. It doesn't matter when I bring something up, in the "heat" or when things are completely calm, he always gets angry and admits that there is just no good time to approach him. Am I to keep my concerns and feelings to myself, and just hope that maybe in a few more years things will work out? Only once he gave the advice that I phrase things as a question instead, as he didn't like my "tone" (I could say it in the most neutral way possible and he still gets irritated, and can't ever describe my tone or tell me when I'm doing it). So I tried that advice, but then he kept getting mad that I was asking questions instead of being blunt. I've even tried preparing him by first saying things like "I'm not trying to start an argument or upset you", or "I 'm not sure how to approach this", or "I'm going to try to explain this the best way that I can". I usually ask before bringing something up and he often says he can tell that I am trying to phrase things carefully, but that he knows he still gets angry anyway...

Towards the end of the day when we were both sitting doing nothing, he just started messing around on his phone (even though i was trying to converse with him and ended up sitting there and just waiting for him to get off his phone) and then flipped on netflix and put on his tv show (that he knows I'm not interested in and he is quite far along in the seasons anyway) and just stopped paying attention to me or trying to include me in anything, it's like he forgot I was there. I asked if we could do something we would both enjoy and relax to instead rather than just him relaxing watching his tv shows while I do nothing, especially since we weren't having any time together the next weekend or hardly even during the week. He got very mad that I even asked and refused to do anything or try and come up with anything to do, or to even watch his show when I told him to just watch his show if he really didn't want to do anything else. What was really confusing was at some point he said he DID want to do something. So I believed him and tried to come up with things, but then he rejected everything and got mad that I was still trying to suggest things and finally said he didn't want to even be in the same room as me because we had been arguing a lot over the day and that he didn't understand why I wanted him to try and help me come up with something he would be happy with. Of course I explained that I was still trying because two seconds earlier he said he did want to do something with me.....it was very contradicting and I was confused.

In the end, he ended up admitting he didn't look forward to spending time with me because all we do is argue. I told him the point of UA time is to have fun, and if he didn't get angry at everything then arguments wouldn't ensue so often, as discussions wouldn't become fits of rage and I would feel more comfortable talking. I did also say that only he can control his anger and decide what sets him off, because I never know what's going to...Of course this made him even more furious.

--Does anyone have any suggestions for how to express what you are feeling, without your spouse taking it as a personal attack and resulting in an AO? He says he wants to work on things and is on board with MB concepts, but as soon as it comes time to actually apply what we are learning/reading and discussing, he does not want to apply anything and gets incredibly mad when I do, saying I am being unfair. I don't know what to do!

He is right that you are trying to tell him how he feels. Telling him that you think his motives are x, y and z are disrespectful judgements. Even if you (and I myself) think these judgements to be true - don't say it to him out of respect. The truth is you can't possibly know for sure what he thinks and it is all moot anyway.

What can he say to those accusations? As you have found it gets you nowhere.

Stick to talking about your boundaries and your feelings. Keep it as simple as that. Not only does it respectfully avoid tinkering around in his head looking for bad motives, but it is also more effective:

Your feelings and boundaries:

"I must have a marriage where I have my husband's time"
"I insist on a marriage where I am party to all our decisions - big and small"
"I will only agree to a marriage where my feelings are considered"
"I will not stay in a marriage where my feelings are considered silly"


Stick to talking about your feelings and how if they are not taken on board by him you feel a divorce is inevitable.


You are right that you and he 'feel differently' about the topic; but that is true of any man and woman. A buyer takes on the feelings of his spouse and DOES NOTHING without her enthusiastic approval. He does not go to the gym, he does not eat sardines; he does nothing to offend or upset her. A little thing or a big thing, he waits for her feelings to clear it before going ahead. Two votes or no vote.


Don't get sidetracked into having his feelings of what is important enforced upon you. Unless you insist that your feelings are considered at ALL times, your love bank will be bust down by a death of a thousand cuts. You will join the long queue of women who divorce because their husbands are absent, independent and dismissive. You cannot sustain your feelings of love in those conditions and it is only fair to warn him that divorce is something you cannot prevent in these circumstances. Each time his feelings are enforced upon you; you love him less than you did.


When his feelings are enforced upon you:

When he takes a job you did not agree to
When he unilaterally sidetracks money from marital funds for his own use
When he decides how much marital money should be taken from you to pay for his job expenses
When he tells you your 'cut' is whatever scraps are left over
When he tells you your cut should be used to pay the bills
When he makes you solely responsible for bill management
When he unilaterally decides that you should both have separate interests and friends
When he tells you that disagreeing with the above is small and silly.

You can't remain in love under these circumstances.
You can't argue him, or DJ him into changing these circumstances.

The best you can do is tell him what the consequences of his IB upon you are likely to be: loss of love and divorce.

If he still does not care, then your best option would be to fill his lovebank steadily for a period of time without lovebusting. When he is feeling his most affectionate towards you, I would then leave but with strict conditions regarding your position being made equal if he wishes you to return. He will either miss you enough to provide you with a proper marriage or he won't. If he won't you will only lose a losing battle.

However trying to lovebust him into compliance avails nothing.

Also, any sign of rage from him should see you leave the house.

I never thought of my descriptions as DJ, so I will stop with that. Oddly enough, I used to ONLY say how I felt, much like how you suggested above, but was continuously met with accusations that I was telling him how he felt/what he was doing, or I got told what I was saying was silly/stupid and sometimes even got laughed at for feeling like I did.

This is close to one of our "regular" arguments in the past: If I said that I felt my feelings were not being considered and did not want to be in a marriage where that continued to happen, then he would get mad and tell me that I was accusing him of not caring about my feelings when he did, and that I was trying to tell him what he was doing/feeling. He DID try to work on things for a few months before we got married, but not long after it's like everything reverted, and just kept getting worse.

...so that's when I started trying to explain myself and let him know that if I was wrong to tell me so that I could change how I interpreted his repetitive actions, as that is the only thing I can personally change, I can't change what he does. I did this not with the intent to trap him, but in an attempt to get him to understand why I felt the way I did (rather than dismissing my feelings as stupid), and give him the opportunity to help clear things up by explaining his side of things.

But regardless of my reasoning, I will begin to view my explanations as DJ and go back to just saying how I feel (in more generalized statements that refer to what I am not happy with as far as our MARRIAGE goes, rather than what I am not happy with in regards to his actions and words). I will also start to leave at any sign of anger. We used to just go to separate rooms, but that solved nothing as then there would be silence all night and he interpreted me leaving rooms as me being pissed and not wanting to be around him (when really I was just trying to wait for him to calm down). If I even attempt to talk about things after we have been apart for an hour or so (or even the next day), he thinks that I am mean for trying to bring back up the conversation that got him mad. But maybe when he begins to notice how much I start leaving, he may actually begin to notice the seriousness of his AO's and their effect on me.

Although, I did leave yesterday for a couple hours and have left before, and he always knows that it is because of his AO's as I only work up the actual courage to leave when he has been going off on everything all day and I feel like I can't even speak without upsetting him. He is always in "angry mode" when I leave of course (which is not very often), and almost every time I have come back he is gone...He shows back up sometime after midnight and sleeps on the couch. Is there something I am supposed to say before leaving? How long should I actually leave for?

It sounds like anger is a significant problem. You shouldn't feel that afraid of your husband and (take it from a former angry person) it's appears to be working from his standpoint; though it's destroying you both it looks like a good strategy to him.

He has blinkers on when it comes to your perspective. So much so, even when you are talking about your requirements he dismisses it (that's not that I meant) unless it matches his view entirely.

He genuinely believes he is right and therefore when you disagree you are wrong. The goal of a righteous-fuelled angry person is to show how much you believe you are right, to prove you are right by being angry.

When the other person capitulates, the angry person feels justified and they also feel the angry method works. Anger makes people treat you with fear for your reaction: but to the angry person it appears to be respect for your opinion.

You see how important it is therefore, not to feed the cycle of abuse? It's actually better to separate than to give the impression you are 'over' it and now accept his viewpoint.

My two pieces of advice are:

1) Don't get stuck in lengthy negotiations. If you don't agree to his IB time (he has no automatic right to any time away from you even if that means you are together EVERY hour) tell him you would like him not to go without any attempt to argue your point. If he says no, do not reply, you were informing him, not ordering him. Simply note his refusal.
If he yells no, or growls it, or is angry even quietly, the conversation is now unsafe and you should leave it. It cannot help you to be yelled at or abused. If he then habitually makes himself scarce that is fantastic news because you can change the locks while he is out if he will not control himself.

2) Read the thread in Prisca's signature about what to do with an angry husband.

You will make no headway whatsoever until the anger is under control. Whenever there is a problem to discuss, anger makes your husband temporarily insane.